Let me share with you my experience from making Alton Brown's Chicken Parm recipe and if it's something that I would choose to make again. Learn what if any adjustments I decided to make to this recipe.
My First Time Making Chicken Parm
You might think that after 15 plus years of writing a food blog that I would have make my own chicken parmesan by now. But I have never done it before.
When I saw Alton Brown had a recipe and he is my absolutely favorite food personality of all time and one of my biggest inspirations, the time finally came for me to get into the chicken parm making game!
The reasons I looked at this recipe and wanted to try it include:
- He butterflied the chicken breast, so it's thin and cooks quickly. This helps the chicken not to be dried out.
- The recipes call for you to use salt & vinegar potato chips in the batter, which sounded like a brilliant idea.
- The cheese calls for was a combo of mozzarella and fontina, which I think adds more interest to the flavor.
Below I have shared with you a few pictures and notes along with the recipe that I wrote in my own words to show you how to followed Alton's recipe.
The Tomato Sauce
My review of this recipe doesn't include the actual tomato sauce Alton made for it. Not that I saw anything wrong with his recipe, in fact I am always recommending people buy and use San Marzano tomatoes. I made tons of batches of tomato sauce using tomatoes that I grew in my garden and froze. I do grow some San Marzano tomatoes but I don't have the famous soil in which they are grown in Italy to be the official, authentic, legit San Marzano tomatoes! But I am still plenty happy with the results.
Whatever tomato sauce you use it's very important that it's a thick tomato sauce. If it's too thin it could result in your breaded chicken being soggy. Yes, adding any sauce to a chicken is going to softened it but we should do our best to still keep the chicken as crisp as we are bale to do so.
If your tomato sauce is too thin, you can also put it in a saucepan to reduce it so it's as thick as you see in my pictures. It should pretty much be the texture of tomato paste, but you don't want to use straight up tomato paste as canned tomato paste is typically too bitter on it's own and lacks depth of flavor.
Broiling
I was just talking about this morning with a friend on Instagram that people don't use their oven's broiler enough. It's underrated. It's the perfect thing to use to brown the cheese quickly, which is another way to keep the chicken more crisp, plus it gets food in your belly faster!
The Cheese
Alton's recipe calls for fontina cheese and mozzarella. If you haven't used fontina before, let me share a little about this cheese. Fontina is a great melting cheese like mozzarella but it also has a bit of nutty flavor that pairs well with the mozzarella.
If you need help finding fontina, look at Trader Joe's. You can get a chunk of it there and it usually has a red wax around it. Also look at any place that sells BelGioOsos cheeses, they make an excellent fontina.
🍴 This recipe was amazing and I am so glad I made it. The chicken was not soggy and it tasted amazing with the tomato sauce that I worked so hard to grow the tomatoes for and then made into a sauce. No doubt this is a can't miss Alton recipe. After you give this recipe a try, here are 24 of my Favorite Alton Brown recipes that you need to try out as well.
Alton Brown's Chicken Parm
Ingredients
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, butterflied and pounded to ⅛-inch thick
- kosher salt to taste
- 1 cup plain breadcrumbs
- 20 g salt and vinegar regular cut potato chips
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp dried parsley
- 1 ½ tsp garlic powder
- 70 g all-purpose flour (or ⅔ cup)
- 2 large eggs beaten
- 4 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 2 oz mozzarella shredded
- 2 oz fontina shredded
- chopped parsley to taste
Instructions
- Start by butterflying the chicken. Then, place it into a plastic zip-top bag and use a mallet to pound it as thin as possible. Be careful not to tear the chicken while doing this.
- Cut the chicken into 6-8 pieces and season with salt to taste. Alton recommends using about 2 teaspoons.
- Place the chicken on a drying rack set over a sheet pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow the salt to absorb into the chicken.
To bread the chicken
- In a clean zip-top bag, combine the breadcrumbs, potato chips, parsley, and garlic powder. Crush the chips in the bag until you achieve a coarse meal consistency
- Get out three cake and/or bread loaf pans. In the first pan, place the flour. In the second pan, beat the eggs with a fork, and in the third pan, add the potato chip/breadcrumb mixture.
- Take each piece of chicken and dredge it, starting with the flour. Shake off the excess, then dip into the egg, allowing any excess to drip off, and finally coat it in the chip/breadcrumb mixture. Place the coated chicken onto a sheet pan.
How to cook the chicken
- Heat a pan over medium heat with 1 tablespoon of oil and 2 tablespoons of butter.
- Add the chicken to the pan in batches, making sure to give them space. Cook for about 2 minutes per side, or until each side is browned. For best results, place the chicken on a drying rack over a sheet pan to prevent the bottom from getting soggy.
Finishing the dish
- Turn on your oven's broiler. Add ¾ cup of tomato sauce to a broiler-safe pan. Place the pan under the broiler and cook for no more than 2 minutes to caramelize the tomato sauce. Be sure to watch carefully to prevent burning
- Remove the pan from the oven and add the chicken, arranging it in a single layer. Spread the remaining tomato sauce over the chicken, placing a dollop on each piece. Then, sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top.
- Place the pan back under the broiler and cook until the cheese has browned, which should take about 60-90 seconds. Keep a close eye on it the entire time—don’t leave the kitchen!
- Remove from the broiler, and it's ready to serve.
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